Come In From The Cold

Maeve Cordell has raised three children, married them all off, buried a good husband, and held half of Hartley Cove together with casseroles and composure. At sixty-three, everyone assumes her story's over. Everyone should stop assuming.

When the family wharf lands in trouble, quiet Arthur Pike - harbormaster, keeper of the light, a man who says more with a nod than most men manage with a toast - offers her a marriage of convenience to save it. She says yes to the paperwork. Just the paperwork. Separate rooms. Nothing foolish.

Small print: Arthur has loved her for thirty-one years from three pews back. He has imagined her by every light there is. And now the woman he never once asked for is across the hall, wearing the good earrings, discovering that nothing about wanting ages out - we just stop confessing it.

The rooms don't stay separate. The lamp stays on. He insists.

Come in from the cold.

A steamy later-in-life, marriage-of-convenience standalone that closes the Hartley Cove series. Guaranteed happily-ever-after. There is nothing ridiculous about it. There never was.